Release Inhibitions
by CrzyAngelchic
Summary: An Ethereal Ravenclaw Challenge. A midsummer's festival at Malfoy Manor. Post Hogwarts and Luna's there. She just wants one thing: for the Aristocratic, too stressed, Draco Malfoy to release his inhibitions and play a game of Hide & Seek. Will he? DMLL


**Disclaimer: **Not mine. But I wish a pair this wonderful was. Dont sue

A/N: Excited! I loved writing this piece. It's a Ethereal Ravenclaw site Challenge fic. A whole site dedicated to Draco/Luna goodness. This was **Meelie's** idea and had to include a midsummer festival, Pansy Parkinson, and a game of HideandSeek. So go on, read. You know the pairing is...intriguing at least. ;-)

Dont forget to review:)

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**Release Inhibitions**

_By Crzyangelchic_

**Ethereal Ravenclaw Challenge Fic:**

Summer.

Luna liked this season even more than that of spring with its flower blossoms and buzzing bees. Summer always had a charged energy to it. She also loved the lush greenness of all the trees, remembering sadly how winter stole all their color and glory.

She smiled brightly. Winter, though, was when all the interesting creatures came out and was when she would get the best stories to publish for her father's newspaper, _The Quibbler_.

Which is why she was here today, she reminded herself, at Malfoy Manor's somewhat Annual (they skipped a couple years during the war) Midsummer Festival. Luna took her work as a reporter for _The Quibbler_ very seriously. After the end of the war, she felt many people's spirits were desolate and she knew, now more than ever, they had to remember to take joy in the many—what they felt were unusual—things that were just beyond their knowing. She had also picked up photography and admitted to herself that she did sometimes go off and snap moments not influenced by magical creatures. But she felt that was okay either way. The world was a beautiful place, and she found beauty everywhere.

Luna adjusted her camera around her tie-dyed halter top that was made with a fine material that reflected the rays of the sun into colors passed the visible spectrum. It made quite an interesting clash with her buttercup-yellow plaited skirt and her white slink-back sandals. Luna had hoped to just blend right in with everyone else, since she would be doing reporter work, but she caught many people giving her curious looks.

And there were many people present indeed. A whole garden full, for they were in the back estate of the Malfoy Manor. And it was larger than even Luna's whole house, still. Most would wonder why so many people had turned out for Malfoy's festival when his family had been such a supporter of the war and had lost the war. Luna figured that the people, like she, simply believed that he was, and always had been, a good guy at heart and she was planning on telling him that today, herself. If, of course, her reporter work didn't take her chasing after a Paknicker Sugartooth or even a Gibrover. But research showed that those weren't normally seen till the end of summer.

Luna made her way over to the drinks table, thinking to get a glass of punch and admire how fancy the display was. A fountain spewed bright pink punch that landed into a bowl and created a plethora of foamy goodness. Luna picked up her camera to snap at it but realized she was too close. As she backed up and more of her surroundings came into the camera's view, she noticed that way beyond the table the host and his lovely fiancée had finally made their appearance.

Draco Malfoy donned robes of pure white cotton that covered an under-vest of festive mango-orange. Pansy Parkinson, at his side, wore a summer dress similar to many of the other witches present but hers was by far the brightest, the most flowing, and the most flattering, made with rich cotton and the same tropical mango-orange to match her husband-to-be. They clung to each other, smiling politely—if not a bit strained, Luna noticed watching Draco—and made several rounds of small talk with patrons nearby. Luna flicked her wand at the camera and a shutter sound was heard. When the picture slid out of the camera and finally came into focus, she noticed she had managed to take a picture of the lower part of Pansy's dress billowing in the breeze against Draco's stiff cotton trousers. And nothing else. Twisting her head this way and that, she admired the orange and white juxtaposition, deemed it a success and tapping it once, made it disappear. She started making her way towards the couple, forgetting her drink and the beautiful array of flowing punch waiting on the table.

She was halfway there, cheerfully ignoring the awkward gazes she was receiving as she cut her way through the main part of the people, when she saw Draco extract himself from Pansy and quickly make his way across the lush green grass towards the house. Before she had even realized it, she had her camera up to her eyes and a flick of the wand later she had a picture sliding from the camera. She was about to look at her photograph when she saw that just before Draco had reached the house, he had snuck off into the flower gardens that housed the tall, waving Marigolds. She tapped the picture, making it disappear before she had managed to see the simple contrast of the bottom of Draco's white robes flowing behind him in the green grass and just the heel of one white, snake-skin boot. She would've been proud.

Now, however, she was quite intrigued by Draco's ingenious plan to get away from all the well-wishing, party people and hot sun by diving into his garden enclosure. And, Luna was sure, she'd be able to spot any creatures for _The Quibbler_ in there. With camera poised and wand ready, she made her way towards the enclosure, stopping only once to snap a photo of a blue jay singing softly in a nearby tree. As she drew upon the enclosure though, she saw what she had been too far away to see at first. Draco hadn't actually gone into the garden. He stood leaning against the enclosure's fancy yellow fence, smoking what she now saw was a cigarette.

_Click_. And a picture began sliding out showing the brown butt of the cigarette slipping out of a surprised looking mouth. And just that.

Luna grabbed the picture quick before it could fall and was about to vanish it when Draco suddenly sprung forward.

"Give me that," he demanded, pointing at the picture. He threw the cigarette on the ground and crushed it using the heel of the snake-skin boot Luna's camera had captured just a while ago.

"Hello Draco," Luna said pleasantly, ignoring his command. "Those are really bad for you, you know. They attract Jotinspree's for one. Oh, and they can cause a fire."

Draco stared at her, taking in her eccentric outfit.

"Who invited you?"

Luna was unperturbed. "I'm with _The Quibbler_, Mr. Malfoy," she said in her most business like tone and held out a hand for a shake. "I'm Luna Lovegood, top executive reporter."

Draco just looked at her extended hand and then back at the one holding the incriminating photograph. Luna could sort-of guess why he might be a little upset for her to have a picture of him smoking a cigarette. Many wizards and muggles alike, looked down on such a habit, but wizards especially found the muggle object, and its dependence on it, scandalous and despicable.

"Whatever," he said after a while, still ignoring her hand. "No reporters are allowed at this function. Now give me that photograph."

"Oh, but I can't," Luna said, and with good reason, too. She would need every bit of her photographs in next month's issue. Maybe. "I need them all."

"All?" Draco asked, disturbed. "How many—doesn't matter." He puffed out his chest and stood tall, all six feet three inches of him towering over Luna. "Ms. Lovegood, you took that picture on private property at a function in which you were excluded as a guest and now you must leave the premises. Without the picture. Now give it to me."

Luna looked up at his glowering face and admired how the lines of his wrinkled brow seemed to be flowing like the waves of the ocean. She itched to snap a quick photograph of it, but she figured he would want to take that away from her as well. She also noticed that those lines were new, but permanent features of his face. Not that she remembered him much in Hogwarts, but it was obvious that the lines were a result of the fight during the war and the new stress of taking over his family's estate after the death of his father. What she wished to see, instead, she admitted, was a boyish grin or maybe even his boyish face in a happy smile. Perhaps as it would have been when he used to play games of Hide-and-Seek in this very garden enclosure.

Still looking up at his glowering face, she responded lightly. "Did you used to play Hide-and-Seek here?" She gave a slight nod behind him to the garden.

He gave her a look between confusion and something else, which even now at 22 Luna still could never identify. It was the look she got whenever she took a long time to answer someone's question. After that look would come the look of anger when they finally realized that she hadn't even really answered their question to begin with. Luna knew all this, but felt that her question was equally if not more important than whatever they were talking about before. It dealt with healing his past.

The look of anger came as Draco unconsciously reached into his robes pocket as if he wished he could just curse away this new annoyance. Luna was somewhat used to that too. But she waited patiently for him to answer.

"Listen, lady. I'm not in the mood for your foolishness. I have a festival to get back to—"

"And to Pansy, too, of course. Do you think she'd like to play Hide-and-Seek as well?"

"That's ridiculous. How old are you—10? Give me the damned pic—"

"I know you're not happy Draco," Luna said in a voice she realized had gone misty and held a dreamlike quality. She could just imagine a younger Draco, happy and carefree, running in his mother's garden in a rueful game of Hide-and-Seek. "Neither you nor Pansy…maybe you do need to go run around in the gardens for a while. Come, let's play. I'll hide first."

Before Luna could move, Draco pulled out his wand and flicked it her way.

"_Accio_ photograph"

And the photograph she had almost forgotten she was still holding flew out of her hand and landed in his. His face broke into a grin, but not the boyish grin she had been hoping for, but a smug and evil smile of triumph.

Luna just stood there.

Draco turned his smug face down to the picture and immediately dropped it with a yelp.

"Good Merlin, woman! What have you been snapping?"

Luna leaned down and picked up the picture, which still showed the cigarette. Merlin only knows what Draco had seen when he looked at the picture. There was a charm on her camera so that if ever someone stole it or its pictures, they would see photos of the most disgusting, scandalous scenes that they would never like to see. Each person is specific but she does remember once when a man had thought to make fun of her and taken her camera. He ended up with a dozen pictures of an old professor of theirs, Professor Umbridge, in a thong doing various seductive poses.

It was Luna's turn to uncover a sneaky smile.

"You charmed that…" he said in accusation, a promise of revenge in his eyes.

Before he could say more, Luna rushed passed him into the garden, running wild among the tall flowers and hedges, yelling over her shoulders, "You have to count to 50 Merlins before you find me!"

She didn't know where she was going, but she was almost certain Draco would follow her. Not so much because she had the picture, she wasn't planning on printing that photograph anyway, but because she knew he wanted—_needed_—to be a little boy again. And she was enjoying it immensely.

She ran against the wind, skirt flailing behind her and her camera bouncing against her chest. Just as she was getting used to this free feeling (almost like flying really, running was, she admitted), she felt a pull on the back of her hair, which had been flowing behind her in a long river of gold. Unfortunately, her sandals were not for running and she ended up tripping and falling, back down, with her chaser landing clumsily on top of her. Luckily though, a bed of lilies had broken her fall and she laughed up into the sky, light headed with the fall and the joy of acting like she really was 10 again.

Draco pulled himself upon his knees, straddling her laughing form, grabbed the picture and, without looking, ripped it into a million billion pieces. Luna looked up to see him glaring down at her, looking like he was crossed between leaning down to strangle her or leaning down to…, well…surely she was just misreading his face.

Luna's laughter faded slowly, but her protuberant eyes remained laced with mirth. She desperately wanted to see that boyish grin on his face, and wondered if tickling him would work.

He glared down at her, breathing hard from the running and falling, then finally spoke.

"You didn't wait for me to start counting."

Luna wasn't expecting that to come from his mouth, and was even more surprised—and delighted—when he started laughing. It sounded on the brink of hysteria, but Luna figured that was close enough. She laughed back along with him.

She extracted herself from him and knelt down beside him. He was still laughing so much, his eyes were watering. She leaned in close to whisper, her lips barely grazing his ear.

"Your turn."

And then immediately there was another voice.

"Draco? Draco is that _you_ laughing in there? What are you doing?"

The voice was a far while away at the edge of the garden enclosure where the two gamers inside had forgotten there was a whole party of people.

Luna wanted Draco to stay. To stay and play, she insisted to herself, but she wasn't quite sure. Maybe she had gotten bitten by a Luverblubber worm, for surely she could not be entertaining thoughts of kissing the aristocratic Mr. Draco Malfoy.

When she looked back at Draco's face, the laughing and boyish glee was gone. He was back to being Draco Malfoy, 23 years old and owner to one of the most powerful estates in England. Luna was so upset she almost pouted. And she had given that up long ago when she realized it was a mating ritual associated with Gibrovers.

"You have to go, huh?" she said, solemnly.

Draco gave her a look of surprise, probably because she sounded so serious and adult-like, all her enchantment gone. He hadn't said anything since his fiancée had come to the garden alcove, summoning him back to the life of beautiful people, parties, and false intentions. Luna knew she was not at all like that life and wondered why she felt sad that he would eventually return to it when it was more like him than anything else.

Draco looked at her again, taking in her vibrant shirt, her messy windswept hair, and camera. _So opposite_, Luna thought again, as she sat there patiently under his scrutiny. Then, he got up, took out his wand and ran it over his robes, making them pearly white again. She got up too, ignoring the dirt clinging to her legs and skirt. She picked up her camera, expecting to get one last picture of his retreating back. One eye behind the camera, she didn't even see him as he reached around her and placed a soft, quick kiss on her cheek. And before she could react, he was in her camera view again, his back getting further and further away as she still hadn't taken a picture.

_Click_.

And then a photo slipped out of the camera but she didn't catch it. Landing gently on the ground, it finally cleared to see the imprint of a single petal of a white lily crushed on the ground. And just that.

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A/N: What do you think? please _**review**_:) 


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